Darkening edges of transparent gif

[sisom]

Hi, does anybody know how to darken the edges of an object so that when I turn the background transparent, when I save it as a transparent gif, the edges don't show up as light when I superimpose it on a coloured background?
(I am trying to make website banners with text and a picture, and the edges of the gifs I create always end up with light pixels on the edges which look bad when they are on top of the banner. I tried upping the value of the 'colours like' option when using the eyedropper (sorry, I've forgotten the correct name of the option) but this hasn't worked, I'd like to be able to edit the edge of the object to darken it before saving the gif.)

[VikingAnimations]

Click "Save For Web" and choose Entire Image. Select the GIF button to save in GIF format. Now adjust the options...

There is a tab called "Matte." Click that, and change the Matte to either None or black, or the color of the web page background. None will result in jagged edges, while a darker color will smooth the edges and it will blend in with the web page much more nicely....

This assumes your object is one you've created, and not one you've nabbed from somewhere (and comes with the light edges). Otherwise, you may have to manually trim the edges with the Eraser or something...

[sisom]

Hi, thanks for your reply. The images I am using are photos of objects for sale in my online shop, so I think what I need to do is somehow manually adjust the outside edges so they are all under a certain brightness level. Is there a way to do this? I remember reading somewhere about a tool you could use to brush over the edges and it would automatically make them darker.

All of these images are very small (under 60 x 60 pixels) if that's any help.

[heinz-oz]

There are a great number of useful tutorials on the PIRC site
http://www.pircnet.com/

A tutorial for saving a gif without those jaggies can be found here http://www.debisty.com/tuts/10/optimizing/opt-gif.htm

[VikingAnimations]

Perhaps try "Effect, Creative, Paint on Edges" with the foreground color set to a dark color... You may have to enlarge the image first, apply the effect, then shrink it back to the original size.